Fujifilm Debuts Impressive Trio

More digital camera hit the market, what can we say? Ok, apart from give you the details…

This trio from Fujifilm is headlined by the F30, a camera Fujifilm says works in “the light conditions that other cameras hate”. Removing this horrific dumming down and translating it into something I like to call 'adult speak' this means is the F30 is equipped with ISO 3200 sensitivity at full resolution, no mean feat. A ‘smart flash’ also claims to take advantage of this uber high setting to intelligently adjust foreground and background illumination (no more ghosty-wosty face, as the company will probably market it).

You’ll get a whopping 500 shots off a single charge, a 2.5in LCD, 3x optical zoom and VGA 30 fps video recording too, while the company’s sixth generation engine, the Real Photo Processor II, promises 0.01 second shutter lag and a 1.4 second start up.

Cutting a similar fine path is the FinePix F650 Zoom, a highly specced and reasonably compact (107 x 60 x 30mm) if hefty (170g) offering. It sports six megapixels (get ready for a theme this year), nice 5x digital zoom (hence the name), large 3in LCD and VGA video mode which predictably runs at 30fps.

Rounding off the three and also receiving the ‘Zoom’ tag is the A600 Zoom, an entry level camera which nicely raises the beginners’ bar to 6.3m pixels. It is good to see a 3x optical zoom is also now this year’s base standard and a 2.4in LCD has made it across too. Measurements are compact at 93 x 60 x 30mm and it is no pocket breaker (145g).

12MB of internal memory backs you up in case of memory card emergencies, ISO 400 will provide low(ish) noise and there are four basic shooting modes (portrait, landscape, sport and night scene). If there is a weakness it is the 10fps limitation of video capture, which you may wish to bear in mind.

Pricing wasn’t revealing for any of the models, but we do know the A600 and F30 are coming out in June. Fujifilm held back on naming a date for the F650, but we’re going to use a rare commodity called ‘common sense’ and suggest we’ll see this remaining contender in July.